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Roco electric switcher dcc + supercap mod

A beautiful DC switcher locomotive from Roco. Great die-cast body and detailing. I added the ESU basic DCC decoder along with the supercap module shown below at the rear of the locomotive.

The black slue you see where the driver is seated, is liquid tape. It works great to secure the wires and is very easy to remove.

Sideview of the assembled Loco. This loco uses lightpipes for the lighting. I replaced the filament bulbs with 0603 LED’s. I also had to mill sections off the loco to accommodate the slightly large ESU decoder and the supercap module.

Final assembled loco.

Conclusions: While this loco is very well detailed and has a solid metal chasis, its driving mechanism is very bad. None of the wheels have gears. The entire wheel assembly is being driven by the crankshafts attached to the rotating plastic flywheel which in turn is operated by the motor using a worm wheel. So its driving characteristics are bad. It also wobbles a bit, possibly due to the crankshaft drive.